Compare 'The Red Room' and 'Farthing House', looking particularly at how fear and tension are built Fear and Tension are built up quite differently in the stories 'The Red Room', and 'Farthing House'.

Extracts from this document...

Introduction

Compare 'The Red Room' and 'Farthing House', looking particularly at how fear and tension are built Fear and Tension are built up quite differently in the stories 'The Red Room', and 'Farthing House'. Both stories build up feelings of fear and tension but the way the two do so differs. In 'The Red Room', this is achieved by repeatedly emphasising one idea throughout the story (the malevolence of the red room itself) whereas in 'Farthing House' there is no specific idea being repeated, and fear and tension are built up by the constantly high level of activity on the part of the ghost. If we take 'The Red Room' by H.G. Wells first, we see how Wells builds up powerful levels of tension by describing events that could be the natural result of present circumstances (e.g. a draught). He does this by describing castle in which his main character is to stay in gloomy, and slightly unnerving terms, and how he comes, he says 'to the business with an open mind.' (page 3). In other words, despite the sinister, discomforting appearance of the castle (its darkness, its draughts, it shadows, for example) ...read more.

Middle

In the text itself there are two - the event happening and some time later the narrator (and we can assume that we the reader are taking on the role of the child it is addressed to reading the story much, much later than the two shown in the text). This elaborate time-framing lets us assume that the incident has affected her so that it has taken time for her to recall it and work up the courage to, in a sense, tell someone and write it down, thus building tension by using the automatic assumption that it was an incredibly traumatic incident. I began to be restless several weeks ago. I was burning the last of the leaves... and I let myself go back...watched it unfold again, remembered. So that it was all clear in my mind...a week later.(pages 16 and 17) This quotation shows that the author is using time-framing in the story. The time reference 'several weeks ago' doesn't refer to when the incident occurred, but to when she last thought of 'that day'. A difference between this story and the former is that, whereas the opposite is true for the short story by H.G. ...read more.

Conclusion

The address of the woman in question was in Farthing House Close. This twist is there to make the reader tense by implying that, although never seen any more, the ghost of Eliza Maria Dolly is still very much active (the word is really 'alive', but ghosts can't really be alive, so I used 'active' instead). I have no doubt that the narrator thought that Eliza's ghost was responsible, as the woman claimed she wasn't of her own mind when the theft happened. I, although I cannot provide a suitable alternative explanation, am sceptical. In closing, I think that both writers tried similar devices but in different ways. An example is repetition. H.G. Wells uses it to emphasise the malevolence of what haunts the red room, and how it drives the narrator almost completely paranoid. Susan Hill, however, uses repetition to keep the reader asking himself just what the ghost is. However there are more major differences, for example, the open ending of 'The Red Room', although more conventional, is far more cryptic, and dramatic, and not so neat as the also open ending to 'Farthing House'. Seren Kuhanandan 11 N/FC GCSE English Wider Reading Coursework 05/02/02 - Page 1 of 2 - ...read more.

The above preview is unformatted text

This student written piece of work is one of many that can be found in our GCSE H.G. Wells section.

Related GCSE H.G. Wells essays

And the prefiguring and foreshadowing in the Red Room is again quite different, such as the candles not piercing the darkness, which adds an element of the unknown, the pace increases which in turn makes the tension increase, the candles also start to go out, introducing the element of the

When the candle had extinguished, the room went dark which gives a spooky atmosphere for what is going to happen next. By looking at the title of 'The Red Room,' the word 'Red' symbolises many things. The colour red has a connection with devil, danger, death, blood, red eyes and

They both effectively build up tension and suspense. In both stories both of the main characters are manipulated. In "The Red Room", he loses control of his feelings when he feels he is in control. In "The Signalman", he believes the apparition is warning him of someone else's death but it is in fact his own death.

They find out that old Mrs rutter who when they met seemed a regular and very nice old woman who could have been either of their grannies, left a man to die many years ago and to that day was not ashamed and did not regret what she had done.

When the young man hears "the sound of a stick and a shambling step on the flags" the reader wonders who it is that is coming. This builds suspense by making the reader anticipate who is coming. When the young man goes through the passage it is described as "echoing passage".

When he is ready to depart for his journey to the red room, the old people either do not hear him or pretend not to hear him for his own safety. This causes him to repeat himself and louden his voice showing his bravery and insistence.

She is forced to stay in the Cedar room because the guest room is booked. On the first night the woman hears the sound of a baby crying, but dismisses it as the television, and is not sure. Later that night the woman wakes up in bed with the sense that someone has been in her room.

This is a significant detail, as it tells us that the narrator is writing to her daughter and it is also another link with pregnancy, which hints at the final outcome of the story. When she woke up she says, 'I had the absolutely clear sense that someone else had been in my room'.